Is the Future of Food in Tokyo?

TOKYO–The humble euglena gracilis is tiny, green and very strange: Part animal and part plant, the darting little long-tailed beastie can be found by the millions in nutrient-rich freshwater ponds.

And Japan’s Mitsuru Izumo thinks it can feed and fuel the world.

The 33-year-old visionary, who receives the prestigious Japan-U.S. Emerging Leader in Innovation Award at Stanford University’s Japan-U.S. Innovation Symposium tomorrow, has raised millions in venture capital from some of Japan’s biggest brands and best-known entrepreneurs to launch and build Euglena, a company dedicated to turning the humble microorganism for which it’s named into a valuable commodity.

The Japanese slang term for euglena is midorimushi, which translates literally into “green bug.” It’s only half accurate, since euglena gracilis isn’t a bug — it’s a single-celled protist — but it most certainly is green, due to the fact that euglena are one of the very few animal-like creatures on Earth that are capable of photosynthesis.

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